I don't like spam

I don't like spam.

I'm not talking about the mystery meat-in-a-can that you fry up with eggs and bacon.

I mean the stuff that gets served to my email inbox every morning, afternoon and night.

I try to stop it, but it's like trying to keep ants out of my house. Every time I block off one place that they're coming from, they find another way in. I must get a hundred junk emails every day.

I do not need penile enlargement (although I have to admit that I know several people who do.) I do not want to buy prescription drugs from "reliable" overseas pharmacists who have no vowels in their names and whose license numbers are suspiciously similar to the format used by San Quentin for prisoner IDs. I do not believe for a moment that there is a sick child in Spain who has been collecting emails for fourteen years as his "dying wish." Nor can you convince me that I've won three million dollars in Nigerian Lottery, that Mr. Nivranskinashak Minrovernia of Flakelovakia has left me his estate and only needs my bank account number to deliver my funds or that I will receive a free computer simply by forwarding an email to two hundred people. I do not need to be warned about going to a party, getting drunk and waking up in a tub of ice water missing my kidneys. I am not falling for your claim that someone in Peru tried to use my Visa card, my Paypal account has been locked or that my Facebook password needs updating so that I can sign on to your un-secure server and supply you enough personal information to arm you for identity theft. And no, I do NOT want to 'meet my soul mate in seven days', 'hook up with hot studs in my area' or 'see what Bambi is doing on her webcam.'

Offers and spam. Warnings and spam. Spam, prizes, porn and spam. Spam spam spam spam spam.

I don't like SPAM!

Songs of the Season

I didn't write the music, but I am The Master when it comes to bastardizing lyrics. I'd like to apologize to the composers and original performers of the following songs. I'd LIKE to.....but if the shoe fits......

To the Tune of “Winter Wonderland”

Where's my truck

I can't find it

What the fuck's

All this white shit?

You can't see the grass

It's a pain in the ass

Riding in a winter wonderland!

 

Gone away is the pasture

Haven't seen it since last year

There's horses out there

They're buried somewhere

Out there in that winter wonderland

 

We'll just have to hibernate all winter

Cancel all your outdoor plans til May

Make some extra money in the meantime

And rent your horses out to pull a sleigh

 

Forecast said shouldn't worry

Just a chance of a flurry

"Partly cloudy", alas is now up to my ass

Riding in a winter wonderland 

-----------------

To the tune of “Love me or Leave me”

 

This damned stuff is killing me

I can’t stand this cold you see

Tell me now, ‘cause I’ve got to know

Whether this weather will stay or go

 

Turn up the heater and fetch me a sweater

It’s the west coast, WTF’s with this weather?

If I wanted winter I’d move to the freakin’ North Pole

 

You might think December’s the right time for white time

But I’m not the Christmas-y cold snowy night kind

I’d rather be bitchin’ than hitchin’ my horse in the cold

 

There’ll be no fun unless unless there’s some sun and sooooooooooooon

I’m just waiting and hibernating ‘til Juuuuuuuuuuuune

 

If temperatures keep heading in this direction

You weathermen better get witness protection

 

For I hate the mud and the rain and the snow

and the ice and sleet and the cold winds that blow

My pain is your pain there’s no fun for nobody else

 

Twilight Zone

Imagine, if you will, a door.

No, strike that. That sounds way too Rod Serling-like.

Imagine a room. A modest but respectable room just big enough to contain those things important in life. These things are meticulously organized; stacked and categorized, everything in its place. It’s simple, uncomplicated. Mundane, for sure, but drama free. It’s…..nice and you’re….content. You’ve worked diligently for a long time to ensure that everything is exactly where it should be and that nothing that could possibly rock your world (for good or for bad) may enter.

Now imagine the door to this room is flung wide open and hurricane force winds blast through. Everything in the room is uprooted, displaced, hurled and spun out of any semblance of order. You try to collect things and put them back where they were, but the wind keeps coming and nothing will stick. It’s pandelirium.

That’s pretty much my life lately.

For some reason, the great almighty universe, in its infinite wisdom, decided that my world needed some badass shakin’ up.

Nothing is as it once was. I am enjoying things I’ve never before had a taste for. I have become….social. ME, the non-social wonder. I’m going out dancing and to parties and I’m riding mechanical bulls. I’m taking chances. I’m making lists of things I have never done before but am suddenly compelled to learn and master.

It’s like another person is inhabiting my body. Gosh, I hope they can cook and don’t want to get up early. I hope they like shopping. I hope they have more money than I do to GO shopping. I hope they don’t like rap. I hope they have a lot of single, good-looking, wealthy, generous, kind, funny, smart, sexy straight male friends.

But it’s not all good. My normally photographic memory is out of calibration. I am staying up working on creative projects (good)  instead of sleeping (bad). I’m freaked out by the number of paranormal, inexplicable things that are suddenly commonplace in my world. Have I always been attuned to this sort of thing and just never paid attention, or have I acquired some macabre new talent? It’s as though some sort of door has opened and new, fascinating and frightening things are rushing in faster than I can process them.

And NO….it’s NOT “hormones.” For god’s sake, if you’re going to flip me off, come up with a better excuse than THAT.

Something far bigger than me is dealing the cards at the moment, and I’m getting stuck with playing the hand. I don’t like gambling. Why? Well, because it’s….gambling. I like to tie things up with neat, tidy explanations, and I like all those things to fit neatly within my personal paradigm box. 

But for whatever reason, the universe has decided that my previously mundane, boring, hermit-like existence is over. It’s a riptide of change and I can only hope to stay atop the wave and see where it takes me.

I only wish I’d taken those swimming lessons in third grade.

 

Chickens on the Balcony: A metaphor for life

The scene: a hotel room in an undisclosed location, occupied by the author and a gentleman friend who shall remain nameless.

Oh alright, let’s call him Fred.

It’s morning. I think. I know it’s light, because even with my eyes wide shut I can sense sunlight filtering through the gauzy curtains that cover the balcony doors. I have no idea what time it is, but I’m pretty sure it’s waaaaay too soon to think about getting up. It was a late night. I’m happy to just lay (lie?) there next to another warm body.

Said warm body had had the kindness to not snore the preceding night. To what that blessing can be attributed, I know not. I had learned long ago, in dealing with this particular man, to accept small miracles with gratitude and grace. Truth be told, I often times didn’t mind his snoring. It was rhythmical and downright musical at times. Sometimes it made me laugh, because it sounded like he was composing tunes via his nasal passages. Which beat the hell out of other ways his body could be making music while I was essentially trapped under the covers with it. 

Through my I-may-rise-but-I-refuse-to-shine haze, I hear Fred’s voice. Deeper than usual, as it always is immediately upon waking. A voice I loved, no matter what it said.

It said, “I hear a chicken.” 

I don’t have a memory like a steel trap, but I was fairly certain he’d never uttered this particular phrase in bed before. 

This, of course, made absolutely no sense. Any random phrase from Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody  would have made more sense. I assumed he was talking in his sleep and ignored it.

A few steady breaths later, he said, “there it is again.” His tone was more staccato; he definitely was not sleep-talking.

He got out of bed like a man on a mission, and pulled on an ugly white hotel-issued robe – a wise move since he was headed out the doors to the balcony.

From outside, he said, more resolutely, “There’s a bloody chicken out here.”

Now, I didn’t know what he thought he was seeing, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t a chicken. We were five floors up. And while the hotel wasn’t in the midst of a metropolis, I hadn’t noticed any neighboring chicken farms.

I laughed out loud; it was my polite laugh, the one I used when I thought somebody was completely wrong but I didn’t want to be so rude as to say so. 

He knew me well enough to know it was my I-think-you’re-looneytunes laugh. He’d always read me eerily well. I couldn’t get much past him, and certainly not my polite laugh, not even this soon after waking.

A moment later he was dragging me by the hand, throwing the other ugly white hotel-issued bathrobe at me and towing me out the doors to the balcony. He stopped me at the precise mark and turned my body to the precise viewing angle.

There was a freakin’ chicken on the railing of the balcony of the suite next door. It was either a chicken or some other kind of bird that looked like a chicken, talked like a chicken and walked like a chicken. Brown and red and feathered and clucking.

I looked up. There was one more floor above us and then the roof. I looked down. There was a café next to the hotel with annoyingly chipper looking people having breakfast. I saw no way a chicken could have gotten up here. But there it was. 

I turned around and looked at Fred. He was standing with both hands on his hips, head cocked slightly and the most glorious, sleep-tousled wavy masses of hair cascading all to one side. He had hair that people would have killed for. One brow was raised defiantly as he regarded me with his very best “I told you so” look.

I was about to comment when his gaze shifted back to the chicken and he exclaimed, “It’s going to jump!” 

I whirled back ‘round in time to see the chicken leap. It plummeted five floors in a flutter of feathers and squawking, bounced off the edge of a café patio umbrella and landed smack dab in the middle of somebody’s breakfast. People screamed and scattered, dishes flew, and the chicken high-tailed it off the table and scurried away.

Faces turned upward, and we realized to our horror that those people thought we had dropped a chicken bomb on them. We ran inside and recoiled from the balcony before the angry villagers could return fire. Thank goodness we had at least been wearing the bathrobes. I could imagine the headline: Naked Couple Fowls Breakfast of Unsuspecting Diners.

Later, we were having a leisurely lunch in a restaurant in the same hotel.

A waiter walked by and served the people at the next table a delicious looking, lavishly garnished meal of poultry and pasta. 

A few moments passed with no sound other than the delicate, civilized clinking of silverware. 

Then, without looking up, and with totally deadpan delivery, Fred said,  “Do you suppose that’s him?”

He raised his eyes to meet mine, smiled a mischievous smile and we laughed the way two people do when they are the only two people in the world who know what the joke is. It was a silly, irreverent moment that remains as vivid in my mind now, years after, as when it happened.

I realized much later that the chicken on the balcony was a metaphor for many things in life; things that defy explanation, things that make no sense, things that simply shouldn’t be but that irrefutably just ARE.

The unexplained doesn't fit comfortably into my personal paradigm box. I prefer to wrap everything up with a tidy, logical explanation. But life isn’t like that. Things that shouldn’t, can’t possibly, happen, do. Sometimes you just have to call a chicken a chicken, and let it go.

You never know when you will discover the chickens on the balconies of your life. The most you can hope for is that when you do, you'll have had the presence of mind to pull on that ugly white hotel-issued bathrobe first.

Ready. Fire. Aim.

How do you know when a gun is loaded?

Knowing the one (and only) correct answer to this question was the first and most important prerequisite to receiving my firearms safety certificate.

I took the firearms safety course when I was in high school, prior to joining the Rifle Club. Our school (and, in fact, most high schools in Western New York State) had a rifle club and team.

Yes. We had guns. In the school. All the time.

If a person was a member of the Rifle Club, they could, during their free periods, sign out a gun, be handed a box of ammunition (with the same have-a-nice-day casualness that a cashier would hand over a box of Tictacs), and shoot on the indoor rifle range in the school basement. Here’s your gun. Here are your shells. Have fun.

And, we did.

I can see your mouths hanging open in amazement, but I promise, I shit you not.

Nobody thought anything of it. Like football, basketball and wrestling, riflery was a bonafide high school sport. I got my varsity letter participating on the Rifle Team. The team was undefeated in the State during my high school years. I received my National Rifle Association Expert Rating – the highest marksmanship designation – when I was a junior. To receive this rating, I had to achieve an average score of 98 or above (on a scale of 1 to 100) shooting at a bullseye the size of a pea from fifty feet. When you consider   the fact that I can’t even back my car into a parking space without hitting something, that accomplishment seems even more amazing.

Rifle clubs in high schools are, unfortunately, a thing of the past. It’s too bad. There’s a lot to be said for teaching respect for firearms and how to handle them properly. I remember the first time I shot a rifle – the noise, the recoil. I thought, ‘Holy shit, I could KILL somebody!’ Granted, it was only a .22 calibre rifle, which was probably less likely to kill than just really tick somebody off.  Still, it made the concept real to me. You point at somebody, you shoot...there are severe consequences.

I’ve fired all kinds of weapons, from shotguns at woodchucks and clay pigeons to semi-automatic weapons at the pistol range. Oh, and ask me about going bat-shooting sometime. It’s never occurred to me to point a weapon at a person. Well….okay, it’s occurred to me (a few past boyfriends pop to mind), but I never acted on it.   It’s not that there weren’t opportunities.  Kids in Phys Ed classes used to run laps in the high school basement, not far from the rifle target bays. I could have taken any one of ‘em out neat as you please. It seemed unsporting, though. After all, if I could hit a hurtling clay pigeon or a mark the size of a pea, busting a cap in some slow, fat kid in a pair of bullseye-red shorts was hardly a challenge.

The demise of riflery as a school sport saddened me. But it’s a different world today. The last thing that comes to people’s minds when they think of guns in school is team sports.

I’m not opposed to people owning guns, but I’d like to see thorough background checks, psychiatric evaluations, competency tests and renewed-yearly licensing required.

There should also be some sort of test to determine whether a gun owner has the stones to actually follow through. I have had a number of people tell me “oh, I’d have a gun for protection, but I’d never use it. “

Excuse me?

Guns are for shooting – plain and simple, at targets, food to put on the table – or attackers. They have no other purpose. Guns are not magical talismans that you keep in your bedside table drawer and wave around to ward off evil. If you do not believe you could pick it up, and point it at someone, and shoot, you have no business owning it. If you can’t use it, I guarantee your aggressor will be more than willing to take it away from you and use it against you. Gun ownership is a solemn responsibility. Never, EVER take it lightly.

I do not currently own a gun, but if circumstances dictated, I would. I’ve still got my NRA “Expert” medals in a little display box on one of my shelves. I look back on them fondly. And, every now and then, I think to myself, a few of you former boyfriends really don’t know how lucky you are.

Oh, and the correct answer to the question at the beginning of this blog?

 A gun is always loaded.

Crackbook

I recently joined Facebook.

I swore I never would.  Really, swore. Out loud. MANY times.

But then I found an old high school friend I really wanted to get in touch with. The only way to get his contact info was to succumb and join. Reluctantly, I put up a profile. I figured if I was looking for people, maybe people were looking for me. I’d put up one profile. One picture. Have one or two friends. Three, tops. That’s all I needed. No more. Really.

It all started out innocently enough. 

Now I know why a friend of mine calls it Crackbook. It sucks you in and gets you addicted.  It makes you write on people’s walls. It makes you comment on their photos. It makes you send out useless ‘status reports’ that are nothing more than telling somebody some stupid ass thing that you’re thinking or doing at a given moment. Who the hell cares?

Apparently, everybody.

Seriously. EVERYBODY.

EVERYBODY is on Crackbook. The number of people I have found that I haven’t heard from or about in 30 years is astounding. Men are easier to find than women. Women change their names. Other than when it’s required by the witness protection program, men don’t. Even then, I bet there’s some witness protection program version of Facebook. Maybe it’s called FaceLessBook.

Facebook makes you forget things like the fact that if you haven’t had contact with someone for 30 years, maybe there’s a reason for that. But suddenly you simply HAVE to put them on your friends list and look at their photos and read their personal information. Why? Why now?

Because it’s Crackbook.

It IS like a bad acid trip sometimes. The interface is horribly done and entirely user-unfriendly. Whoever designed it should be shot, run over with a steamroller and left for the buzzards. It’s a visual cacophony of photos, links, comments, status updates and other crap (my fingers slipped when I was logging in the other day and instead of Facebook I typed Fecebook. I laughed out loud at the appropriateness of my error).

A friend of mine (a real friend, not a Crackbook friend) described Facebook as a way to be connected without having to be TOO connected. That’s true. It sort of gives you an omniscient look into everyone’s lives, like you’re some all-knowing being looking in on your children.

Of course, that street runs both ways. Friends can look in on YOU.  People you hoped to never see or hear from again can find you.  Girls that wouldn’t give you the time of day in high school suddenly WANT to be your friend (fortunately, Facebook has the IGNORE button). You’ll get bombarded with crap like ‘who’s your celebrity friend of the day’ announcements and ‘how well do you know’ somebody quizzes. Like any addiction, you must take the downers along with the uppers.

Still….I have to admit…..verrrrrrry reluctantly…..that it IS sorta fun. In a sick, twisted, time-wasting sort of way. I might just been a teesny-weensy bit hooked on Crackbook.

But I can quit any time I want to.

Really.

note: before you send me, or anyone, a friend request on Facebook, you should take a listen to this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7MuwPlOiNQ

Ants in My Pantry

I started seeing them earlier this week.

Scout ants – the lone soldiers that precede the invasion. Their job: to gather intelligence and map the location of unguarded foodstuffs then return to the nest and issue the order to invade.

They’re patient. They’re waiting for me to make a mistake. They’re waiting for me to leave toast crumbs on the counter, a Starbucks cup on the desk or a dish with a little bit of food on it in the sink. They’re waiting for me to forget to put the blackberries back in the refrigerator. 

They’re thorough. I see them in different places every day.

They’re careful. There aren’t enough of them to constitute a trail that I can follow to find out where they’re coming from. Yet. 

It’s a game we play several times per year.

I don’t so much mind a few ants. I admire ants, actually. They’re clever. They’re industrious. They’re organized. This is more than I can say for myself most days. No, I don’t mind a few ants.

I mind when a few ants invite their four thousand buddies to join them. It’s like telling your kids they can have a few friends over and discovering the entire junior high school population in your swimming pool when you come home.

So, much as I hate to do it, I kill the scout ants, because I know if they find a morsel of food they’ll sound the alarm and my kitchen will be ant-central-station. If I thought they’d just carry off a few bread crumbs to their pals and be done with me, I’d let them go.  Of course, if I permitted that, I could be opening up a whole ‘nother can of worms. If I let them take a few bread crumbs, what next? Would I put my sandwich down to answer the phone only to come back and find it gone? Would I catch them trying to sneak a beer out of the refrigerator? I know it would only be a matter of time before I came home from the movies one night, looked around my studio and thought “Waaaaaaiiit a minute……where’s my TV?” No, ants are a little TOO industrious. It’s best to nip their aspirations in the bud.

Ants get in to EVERYthing. They get into places where you didn’t even know you had places. High places. Low places. Odd places. Like your iron. I discovered this when I was ironing and steam-flattened ants appeared in burgeoning patterns across my favorite blouse. You could tell some of them had been trying to run. It was obvious that most of them never saw it coming and were plastered with WTF expressions permanently steam-seared onto their faces.

Ants get into light sockets. Did you know they make little popping sounds when they reach a certain temperature?

Ants get into plants. A blow dryer on the lowest heat setting will get them off the plants, but will also fling ants and dirt all over the room. I found this out exactly the way you might imagine.

I don’t like waging chemical warfare. So I’ve tried other methods of ant control. I’ve tried cloves. I’ve tried cucumbers. I’ve tried ant bait. I’ve tried hairspray (not spraying it on them, just bashing them with the can).  I even used a lint brush once. Okay, twice.

But the best solution, by far: the vacuum.

No crushing little ant bodies, no scraping up and disposing little ant remains. No little CSI ant investigations. The ants are sucked away leaving no clue as to the cause of their demise.  It’s quick and I imagine it’s painless. They never know what hit them.

Or, maybe they do. Perhaps some enterprising little ant with a little ant digital camera caught the incident on video. Somewhere on some tiny ant computer screen logged in to AntTube.com, perhaps I am starring in a shaky video titled The Redhead Vacuum Massacre.

If I am, I can only hope the video wasn’t taken one of those times I was vacuuming in my underwear.

Un-Domestic Goddess

For a woman, I am embarrassingly un-domestic. I don’t cook. I don’t sew. I don’t grow things. I don’t host parties. I wouldn’t be able to tell you which utensil to put on which side of the plate. I was simply born sans the domestic gene. And I am surrounded by people who serve as constant reminders of my own shortcomings.

I have a friend who hand-weaves her own scarves and blankets on a loom. She probably even built the loom from homegrown bamboo or something (she has hundreds of species of plants in her yard, all meticulously cataloged). I have no doubt that the only reason she doesn’t also produce her own wool is some pesky city ordinance that prohibits Alpaca herds in the neighborhood. I could no sooner hand-loom a shawl than win the Tour de France. If I can manage to sew a button on straight and not skewer myself in the process, it’s a major coup.

Said friend, who I’ll call Joan (because that’s her name) cooks and bakes the most amazing things from scratch. I gave her a grocery sack full of plums and overnight she magically transformed it into perfectly packaged jars of jam. (I didn’t ask her, but she probably collected sand from beaches around the world, melted it and blew the glass for the jars in her basement). I’d probably have to study the plums for a week just to figure out how to get them open. (Don’t laugh. You should have seen my first experience with an avocado).

Don’t ask me to cook, bake, or jar. Anything. If it involves more than one pan or two ingredients, I’m calling out for pizza. 

I know people who take great pains finding the perfect wrapping paper and ribbons for gifts. They make their own paper. They make their own bows. They mold and bake ceramic adornments to go on top of the boxes. The packages look like works of art – the only fitting receptacles for hand-loomed scarves and homemade preserves in hand-blown jars. I can’t even cut the right amount of paper or get the tape to stop sticking to itself. The ribbon falls off when I try to tie it. And no, I don’t make hand-cut lacey snowflakes to use as nametags. I’m lucky if I remember to find my purple sharpie and write the recipient’s name some place on the wrapping before I forget whom the gift is for.

I was also born without the ability to accessorize. People with accessorization skills amaze me. They have a purse to match every outfit. Their earrings match their necklace, which complements their bracelet and rings. And their shoes always match their belt.

Judging by the way I dress, you would peg me as color blind. On a good day, my socks match. I mix patterns, wear lipstick that clashes with my shirt and wear white after Labor Day. Belts are purely utilitarian; they hold up my pants. Shoes? Forget it. Years of living in barn boots and sneakers have destroyed my ability to walk in anything remotely resembling fashionable footwear. Put me in a shoe with a heel and I walk like Bride of Frankenstein after a few too many shots of tequila. My medical records are full of scribbled entries like “fell off shoes again.”

I have friends who have amazing gardens. They grow their own vegetables, spices, fruit, lumber. I am the plant kingdom’s version of the Grim Reaper. If I so much as cast a glance at a flowerbed, it withers and dies. I have one houseplant that has ever lived; it must be some sort of genetic freak.

It’s too late in life for me to change, and I doubt I could do it if I tried. Instead I’ll embrace my position as the Lady with Unmatched Socks Who Lives in a Garage Surrounded by Dead Plants. And when I’m gone, you’ll have no problem finding where I’m buried. It’ll be the only plot in the cemetery where the grass won’t grow.

Stranger than Fiction

Disclaimer: Some of you may have already read this on my Guest Blog entry at Karin Tabke’s site (www.karintabke.com, check her out!). Not that it isn’t worth reading twice – I’m just sayin’.

Lately I’ve become fascinated with the whole concept of writing queries. For the uninitiated, a “query” is what an unpublished writer sends to agents to try to sell a manuscript they have already written. In a nutshell, it’s their story condensed into a few succinct paragraphs. The query hits on key plot points, characters and conflicts and gives enough info to entice the reader to want know more, but doesn’t give away the surprises or ending – think of it as a movie trailer in written format.

I have had individual works published, but the Road to Publication for the humorous essay is quite different than for a full-blown novel. There’s a real talent to capturing the essence of a story in a quarter-page query. I wondered if it was something I could even do. But I didn’t want to have to write a whole novel to find out. That could take…..hours.

But life itself is a story, isn’t it? And often it’s stranger than fiction. So instead of inventing a story, I took a day in my life and captured it in query format. Here it is, for your reading entertainment:

Introverted, menopausal redhead Jody Werner has finally arranged her life exactly the way she likes it: simple and drama-free. She works at home doing the artwork she loves, has a cute little studio in a blissfully quiet neighborhood and gets to spend the glorious California summer afternoons at the barn with the horses. The cherry on top of the sundae that is her life: she has the freedom to nap anytime she wants. Ah, life is good.

She’s looking forward to another blessedly uneventful day in her “I-refuse-to-turn-on-the-tv-and-hear-any-bad-news” paradise….until the phone call from the mysterious entity known only as The Banker.

The Banker tells her that before her loan application can be accepted, she has to come up with two years back tax returns. Oh no! That means a journey into the black hole that is her filing system; the swirling, bottomless abyss into which paperwork disappears, never to resurface. 

Aided by The Ladder (which creaks and wobbles the higher she climbs) and The Flashlight (which takes sick pleasure in randomly blinking in and out of usefulness) she embarks upon the treacherous journey into The Attic in search of The Box.

But finding The Box is not enough. Working against time, she must assemble two years of back tax returns in the proper order AND find a logical explanation for the decided dip in income for 2007. There is only one way to summon this kind of creativity on short notice: she must sacrifice herself at the altar of chocolate and caffeine.

With a solution (and chocolate-smeared tax returns) in hand she hurries out the door only to discover that her car has a flat tire! While waiting for the roadside assistance people, she gets a call from the barn. Her horse has lost a shoe! Now she has to get the flat fixed, deliver the tax returns to The Banker, locate her farrier and still find a way to get in her afternoon nap. Will she make it, or will the universe add insult to injury by extracting the ultimate price of unplanned expenditures AND sleep deprivation?

I am seeking validation for the non-fictional masterpiece that is my life. Jody’s Day is a complete waste of your time at 75,000 words. I’d be happy to submit the full manuscript for your consideration, provided you give me ample time to find it in The Box.

Is your life stranger than fiction? If so, express your sentiment with Stranger Than Fiction merchandise, available here, at the Misfit Designs online store: http://www.cafepress.com/jlwdesigns/6823909

   

Vaulting: It's Not Just for Kids

Writer’s note: This is a slight revision of a piece that was published in Vaulting World Magazine in June of 2006, reprinted here by popular demand.

Not long ago, I watched an exhibition of vaulting. I don’t know what ‘vaulting’ means in your world, but in mine it refers to gymnastics on horseback. It’s lithe-bodied little (and not so little) girls and even some boys performing all manners of moves, poses, athletic feats and gravity-defying stunts on a moving horse.

I’ve ridden horses since I was ten years old, and the First Commandment has always been to stay on it. In the saddle. Facing forward. Even slight variations of this standard were met with disdain.

Riding backwards and standing up on the horse’s back and doing headstands?  Our instructors always discouraged that sort of thing. Just like they’d get all pasty-faced and panicky if we tried to teach our ponies to rear so we could do our Lone Ranger “Hi-Ho Silver” routine. Any deviation from The Norm would have them running for Valium and liability release forms.

As for getting on a horse while it’s moving - my cronies and I do well to haul our sorry backsides onto a stationary horse with the help of a mounting block or a friend to give us an ungraceful “leg up.”

These little vaulting sprites stride up beside the horse (which moves in perfect cadence in a perfect circle) and hop right on it – at all gaits. Walk. Trot. Canter. No problem. Somehow they never end up hanging under the horse’s belly with their heads plowing up the earth as I imagine I would. 

The littlest people who get to perform the most death-defying acts are known as the “flyers.” In my discipline, a “flyer”is what you do when your horse skids to an unscheduled stop and you keep going. While equally dramatic, our flyers are more verb than noun and less about form than distance. 

Vaulters also have an impressive repertoire of ways to get off the moving horse. They may slide off, or flip over the side, or do a roll or even a back flip off the horse’s back or butt. On purpose.

In my style of riding, we have two kinds of dismounts – Get Off, and Fall Off. If you want to split hairs, Fall Off can be subdivided into Bail Before It Gets Worse and the more common Never Saw It Coming. If you ever see us exiting our horse when it is doing anything other than standing like a statue, it’s because something has gone horribly wrong.

I can also imagine my horse’s reaction if I ever tried to run up and throw my leg over his back when he was trotting along. Assuming he’d let me get close enough to spit on him, I’m sure he’d take my ungraceful floundering as permission to flee into the next county. Even if he were on a longe line, his most likely response would be to drag me through the peony bush. As for what he would do if I tried to stand up or do a headstand on his back...I might as well just hurl my body face-first into the ground and save him the trouble.

But I have to admit, I’ve actually tried it. Vaulting, I mean, not hurling my body face-first into the ground. I took vaulting lessons one winter, and I loved it. It was completely different from anything I’ve ever done on horseback. It was exhilarating. And there’s something about the oddness of looking up at the sky from your vantage point lying across a moving horse’s back that just appeals to my inner sense of weirdness. However, I draw the line at wearing the slinky little full-body leotards that the little girls do. I’m not leaving the house looking like a florescent super hero unless it’s Halloween and I’ve knocked back more than a few shots. I think at my age leggings and a baggy tee shirt are more appropriate.

I’m going to try vaulting again this summer, and I am preparing for it even now. I remember what parts of my body took a beating last time I tried it, so I am attempting to condition said parts to better withstand the demands of the sport. I’m doing pushups for my upper body. I’m jumping on and off of my little trampoline to strengthen and stabilize my ankles. Perhaps I’ll even practice a few moves on those big propane tanks out in back of the barn. I may give new meaning to the term “flyer” if any of that propane goes up.

I will approach it with a youthful exuberance and a can-do attitude. And perhaps a couple of pillows tied around my body, because the ground is a lot harder than it was when I was a kid. Assuming the emergency room has internet access, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Jody Werner is a writer, artist and semi-professional horseman who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. A successful hunter/equitation rider and competitor, she also enjoys an occasional foray into the world of vaulting. She has a Thoroughbred gelding who would never let her stand up on his back, and who quite frankly would prefer it if she’d stay off of him entirely.

A Tale of Two Bales

We’ve got “hay reserves” in back of the barn that consist of a couple-three bales of hay tipped up on their ends and leaned neatly against the side of the building.

Last week I was walking my horse behind the barn. He decided to grab a mouthful of alfalfa off the bale. You could hardly expect him to pass it by, any more than you could expect a cop car not to stop for a guy on the corner holding out a fresh cup of Starbucks.

Unfortunately, my horse decided to grab his mouthful from the BOTTOM of the bale. This is like doing the old yanking the tablecloth out from under the dishes trick and not yanking fast enough. The alfalfa bale toppled.

It fell sideways into the bale of oat hay. Alfalfa is heavy. Oat hay is light. It was like the Budweiser Clydesdales falling into the Taco Bell Chihuahua. The oat bale crashed to the ground and the flakes splattered like a bag of ice cubes heaved off the back of a speeding truck onto the highway. Hay slid everywhere.

Picking up the alfalfa flakes was easy. Alfalfa flakes are pressed together harder than particleboard. You’d have better luck disemboweling yourself than getting alfalfa off the flake. Really, you could fire alfalfa flakes out of a cannon, take out a small town, and the flakes would still be perfectly formed when they landed on the other side. They’re nature’s perfect bricks. If the ancient Egyptians had used alfalfa brick instead of bedrock, the Sphinx would still have its nose.

It was easy to put them back into a neat stack – kinda fun, even. It brought back memories of playing with Lego and Lincoln Logs. I suppose I could have built a duck blind or my own version of Burning Man or something useful, but the daylight and my jocularity were fading rapidly.      

Oat hay does not stack well once it has come un-flaked. It has no cohesive properties. Trying to stack oat hay is like trying to stack a pile of those colored plastic drinking straws. Try it some time. Take a big handful of soda straws and try to press them all together into a pile and make them stay put. That’s pretty much what it was like trying to pile the oat hay back up. I’d scoop up an armful, get half of it into the stack and half of it would slide back to the ground. What’s the name of that guy in the Greek myth? You know, the one who was condemned to forever push a boulder up a hill, only to have the rock slip and roll back down every time he neared the summit? It was like that.

After a lot of re-scooping and re-piling interspersed with creating new ways to combine cuss words, I had the oat hay arranged into something that looked almost exactly but not quite entirely unlike a stack. Although it yinged this way and yanged that way, it was arguably upright. But as I bent down to scoop the last bit of hay from the ground, the stack reached some sort of critical mass and collapsed in all directions. Oat hay slid willy nilly, the way skaters would scatter if you tossed a few well-timed bowling balls out at the Ice Capades. It was carnage. The Hindenburg would have been easier to clean up. 

I never did get the hay back into a neat pile. Out of daylight and patience, there was nothing left to do but pull a tarp over the mess and flee the scene of the crime. Tomorrow, people would discover the destruction. They’d blame our Mexican groom Antonio. He’d never be able to summon up enough English to defend himself. I’d be safe. I’d just have to wear long sleeves for a week to hide all the scratches I’d gotten wrestling with the prickly hay.

And next time I took my horse walking behind the barn, I’d be sure to keep the hay bales out of his reach. 

Arachnophobe

My unreasonable, out-of-proportion-to-reality fear of spiders started when I moved into a little studio in a very woodsy area. I probably kill half a dozen spiders in my house on an average day. Big ones. Little ones. Fat ones. Skinny ones. Spindly ones. Squatty ones. I suppose it’s better than, say, a crocodile infestation, or a plague of locusts or burning hail. They’re small. Ish. I’m bigger than they are. I can squash them like the bugs they are.

Even though I know all of this I always have the same reaction when I see one.

I scream.

Not a little girly squeal, but a bloodcurdling shriek that would land me the lead role in any number of slasher movies. It’s a totally involuntary reaction and it’s embarrassing. 

When the initial panic subsides, I search frantically for an implement of destruction. A shoe, a rolled up magazine. A priceless figurine. It doesn’t matter. The collateral damage is of no concern so long as it dispatches the 8-legged demon to spider purgatory.  It’s not as simple as it sounds. Spiders are fast. Really fast. And they can keep running until they’re down to about two legs.

Spiders appear to get into my home via some Hell Mouth portal that opens directly into my bathroom – which is apparently some sort of arachnid day spa destination. They meet with friends for a drink in the bathtub and then like to cozy up for a little nappy-poo in my bath towels. I have learned to carefully shake out all the towels and the shower curtain and peep into the tub before I climb in. Invariably there are those I discover only after I am naked and defenseless.

I am probably the only person I know who keeps a baseball bat in the shower. If that dude from “psycho” ever sneaks up on ME he’s gonna get a very unpleasant surprise.

My phobia has progressed beyond fear of anything that IS  a spider to fear of anything that MIGHT be a spider.

I over-react if I see the slightest hint of motion out of the corner of my eye. I’ve hurled my body out of my office chair and to the floor when a light on my modem blinked. I’ve thrown plates of food in the air when a piece of lettuce shifted. If I feel a stray hair brush my neck unexpectedly I start pummeling myself like a spastic. I can only imagine the catastrophe if I were to find a spider in the car with me while driving. I’d like to think I could keep my wits about me, but who am I kidding? They’d be pulling my car out of a ravine on the side of the road and I’d be running down the middle of the highway screaming.

Somewhere, in the spider afterlife, little critters are swapping stories of their demise.

“How’d they get YOU?"

“A shoe.”

“...and you?”

“Lawn dart.”

“What about you?”

“I dunno what happened, I was just crawling around in the car and suddenly, CRASH!”

Yeah, well I’m not your chauffeur. Next time just shoot a web out of your butt and let the wind take you where you want to go.

Handicapped Riding Lessons

I teach riding lessons. It’s fun and rewarding. Most of the time. But if I’m ill, like I am this week, it can be a challenge. I’m a little bit off my game. Therefore I’ve written this primer as a guide to help you get the most out of taking riding lessons with me when I’m not feeling well. 

I’ll be sleeping in my car until it’s time to start the lesson. It’s your responsibility to wake me up. I’ll need at least ten minutes to remember where I am and what I’m doing and another five minutes to visit the porta-potty and load up on cold meds. 

Instead of walking around the riding arena during the lesson, I’ll be planting myself in a chair in the nearest patch of shade.  Do not expect me to get up for any reason.

Instructions may consist of things like ‘drop your stirrups and wake me up in ten minutes’ and ‘ride single file down to the drug store and bring back cough syrup while remaining in two point.’

I will try to remember your names.

If my voice gives out, hand signals will be used. Three fingers means canter. Two means trot. One means walk. A circular motion with the hand means reverse. A wide sweeping motion with one arm means speed up. A short quick motion means slow down. Flailing my arms wildly probably means I have a bee in my hair, but could also mean you’re about to do something that will result in bodily harm to yourself or others. Interpret as you see fit. 

Both hands clutching my chest means I need CPR.

If I point at a fence it means I want you to jump it.

You’ll know by the expression on my face afterwards if it was any good or not.

A look of relief means it was good.
No change in expression means it was OK.
A raised eyebrow means it could have been worse.
Rolling my eyes means it WAS worse
Burying my face in my hands is a good indication that it’s time for you to give up and go home 

I’ll have my cell phone with me. If you fall off, I’ll call your cell phone. If you answer it I’ll tell you what you did wrong. If you don’t answer I’ll know to dial 911.

Finally, I will expect someone to bring a car down to drive me back to the barn when the lesson is over. If you forget, and I have to walk back, you'd better be gone by the time I get there. 

Happy riding.

Suicide Hotline

SH: Hello, Suicide Hotline, how can I help you?

Caller: I’m going to kill myself.

SH: How?

Caller: How what?

SH: How are you going to kill yourself?

Caller: I – well – I don’t know!

SH: Well that’s kind of an important piece of information to have, don’t you think?

Caller: I hadn’t thought that much about it.

SH: Well maybe you’d better.

Caller: I don’t know – stick my head in the oven.

SH: Do you have a gas oven?

Caller: I don’t think so.

SH: Well then that’s not going to work out very well, is it?

Caller: Okay, I’ll shoot myself.

SH: Do you have a gun?

Caller: No.

SH: You haven’t really done your homework on this, have you?

Caller: I have a bottle of pills I can take.

SH: What kind?

Caller: Let me check. Doan’s Little Liver Pills

SH: Do those things work?

Caller: I don’t know, I’ve never taken one.

SH: Then why do you have them?

Caller: They were in the medicine cabinet when I moved into the apartment.

SH: When was that?

Caller: 1987. Is that important?

SH: What do you pay for rent?

Caller: Fifteen hundred bucks.

SH: Geez, no wonder you want to kill yourself.

Caller: You’re not helping.

SH: Okay, what floor do you live on?

Caller: Fifth.

SH: Why don’t you jump out the window?

Caller: You want me to jump out the window?

SH: Well, we’re running out of other options aren’t we?

Caller: I thought you were supposed to talk me out of it!

SH: Why would I want to do that?

Caller: Because you’re the Suicide Hotline!

SH: You must want the Suicide PREVENTION Hotline. This is the SUICIDE Hotline. We’re here to help you kill yourself.

Caller: Why would you want to help me kill myself?

SH: Clearly SOMEbody’s going to have to help you.

Caller: How much is this call costing me?

SH: Why do you care, you’re killing yourself.

Caller: You people are sick! (CLICK).

With Apologies to Dr Seuss

I'm often asked where I get ideas for the things I write about. The simple answer is, everywhere. As evidenced by today's blog, even a trip to the hardware store can become an outlet for macabre creativity. I'd like to apologize to Dr. Seuss for my blatant ripoff of his writing style – although I think he might approve.

Hooks I needed

Hooks I sought

A simple thing, a hook,

I thought

Until I saw it

down the aisle

A wall of hooks

that spanned a mile!

Who would have guessed it

so confusing

All those hooks

All there for choosing!

Hooks that stick on

Hooks that screw on

Hooks that clip on 

Hooks that glue on

Hooks for ceilings

Hooks for walls

Hooks for closets

Hooks for halls 

Hooks for coats

Hooks for hats

Hooks for hooks

Imagine that!

Hooks in silver

Hooks in gold

Hooks for looks

And hooks that hold

Hooks of metal 

Hooks of wood

Hooks of plastic

(cheap, but good)

Big hooks, little hooks

Fat and thin

Hooks that swivel

Hooks that spin

Long hooks, short hooks

Curved and straight

Hooks with crooks

(best used for bait)

My head felt faint

My stomach sick

I couldn't choose 

I couldn't pick!

It wasn't fair

It wasn't right

Those laughing hooks

They mocked my plight!

I left bereft

Downhearted, stranded

Hookless, hopeless,

Empty handed

A painful blow

My quest to fail

Aw, screw the hooks

Who's got a nail?